Remarks By His Royal Majesty, Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe CFR, mni, Obi Of Onitsha, Agbogidi, At The Launching Of The Faculty Of Agriculture Strategic Plan For Excellence 2004 – 2010 At The University Of Nigeria, Nsukka, 25 January 2005

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Remarks By His Royal Majesty, Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe CFR, mni, Obi Of Onitsha, Agbogidi, At The Launching Of The Faculty Of Agriculture Strategic Plan For Excellence 2004 – 2010 At The University Of Nigeria, Nsukka, 25 January 2005
The Vice-Chancellor, Keynote Speaker, Distinguished Lecturer, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is a great privilege and pleasure for me to be at this university today for a second time in six months. Last July, I was here for the 11th Herbert Macaulay Memorial Lecture. Having not passed through the portals of your great institution, coming here feels like getting a late life dosage of the “Lion” and “Lioness” experience. Beside my life long commitment to human development, I consider it a duty as a traditional ruler to support the cause of education. Education is the key for securing our future as individuals, community, and nation.
Today, I would like to ventilate two themes in my brief remark. The first is qualitative education and the need to gear up urgently for it. The other is the inevitability of change in the world we live in.
Please permit me to illustrate my first theme with a conversation I had many years ago with a friend on this campus. I was visiting shortly after the university had re-opened following a long enforced closure as a result of student protest. Observing that examinations were in progress, I asked how a realistic assessment could be made of the ability of the students so soon after the long closure and hardly any lectures. My friend replied that the real issue was that the current set must be passed out as quickly as possible in order to create space for the next enrolment.
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Compare that perspective with what Professor Bart Nnaji,
asked in a recent lecture saying: “Who ever said that
education is a mass production endeavour? No!! It requires
careful planning and investment”, and I would add, a
peaceful and conducive environment. He went on to say:
“We would be significantly more prepared if we look at our
graduates like products that can be marketed. If the quality is
good, you will have buyers, otherwise, even when you want to
dash the product away, you may not find takers”
This perspective of Professor Nnaji was aptly encapsulated
in the Executive Summary of the Strategic Plan we are here
to launch, which says: “The continuing absence of a
significant or even recognisable class of successful graduate
farmers in spite of all the mobilised effort of Nigerian higher
agricultural education of the last fifty years represents a
serious indictment of the character and content of the
agricultural curricula offered in the nation’s universities”.
The options are thus clear. Our gathering here is a
manifestation of the choice that the Faculty of Agriculture
and indeed the University have made in their Strategic Plan.
Talking about change, I must confess that I have been
utterly amazed by the extent and severity of change for the
worse that has befallen our academic institutions in this
country, including the University of Nigeria. And I have the
impression that the Faculty of Agriculture has borne the
greater brunt of the decline in this university.
Again, I quote from the Executive Summary to the Strategic
Plan and it says: “Change is necessary for the faculty because
of the following reasons: its battered departments and units,
declining academic standards, disintegrating academic and
physical infrastructure characterised by obsolent and
inadequate technology, a pattern of eroding staff strength,
staff quality and staff morale, declining public image
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characterised by low student enrolment, low quality of students
at intake and a strong desire by the better crop of student
enrolees to transfer to other more attractive faculties and
departments.”
When I read this litany of ills, my heart really sank and I
wondered what else could go wrong with any institution.
Thanks Goodness, the same document somehow gave me
hope when it also said: “But the pain of continuing to live
with the status quo is unacceptable”. I very strongly agree
with that statement.
Today, we live in a world of rapid and inevitable change,
driven by innovations in science and technology. For any
organisation to survive and remain relevant it must
continually re-think and re-invent itself; that is, it must
continue to adapt and change for the better not the worse.
In many ways, the decline in our universities and institutions
of higher learning parallel the situation in the country
generally. One should not recount past policy failures, the
lost opportunities in leveraging our God-given natural
resources for developing our economy, and the sheer
inefficiency and waste that have been built into all levels and
facets of our social and economic system.
Many comparisons have been made between Nigeria and
Malaysia in order to illustrate the extent that we have so far
squandered opportunities to transform our economy and
society. Some forty years ago, both countries were very
comparable on a wide range of development indices – newly
politically independent, cash crop economy dependent on
rural farming, large multi-ethnic population, and a nascent
petroleum industry.
Today, the story is quite different. Malaysia has sustained a
steady economic development and growth. Firstly, they
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modernised and expanded their agricultural sector to
become self-sufficient in food production. They also
organised and invested in export cash crops, such as oil palm
products, rubber and timber. Meanwhile, they steadily built
up and took control of their petroleum sector and applied
the proceeds to effectively build an industrial sector that has
overtaken the petroleum sector in its overall contribution to
their Gross Domestic Production. By so doing, they
diversified their economy and freed it from the vicissitudes
of the international petroleum trade. They also succeeded in
adapting imported technology and created their own
indigenous technology to fit their local needs.
How and why has Malaysia achieved such progress, whilst
Nigeria was drifting backwards? First and foremost, they
have had committed and focussed leadership at various
levels. They have made national interest, common good, and
social equity their only priority. Secondly, they strictly
promoted social discipline and hard work as virtues in place
of graft and easy life. Thirdly, they never lost focus on
agriculture despite windfall oil revenues. Above all, they
maintained long-term and stable policies that gave
confidence to the outside investor.
The experience of Malaysia provides a salutary backdrop to
why we are here today – to support, and empower a bold
initiative to re-think and re-invent the Faculty of
Agriculture and make it fit for the 21st century. I sincerely
believe that a lot can and should be done to transform the
Nigerian universities to enable them play a pivotal role in
the transformation of the Nigerian society.
Last week, the Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge and other
properties at the University of Lagos were sadly destroyed in
protest of the proposal to privatise university hostels. In the
same week, the Economist magazine of London stated that
British Universities now depend on foreign students to
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balance their books. Indeed, some 9% of students in British
universities are from outside the European Union and pay
annual tuition fees of between 8,000 pounds sterling for
Liberal Arts and 17,000 for Medicine.
There are two lessons here. First, despite the age and
maturity of the British system, their universities do not
depend wholly on the government for funding and must
develop alternative sources of income. Why do we therefore
pretend otherwise in Nigeria? Burning down the university
will neither improve its educational standards nor bring
down its costs.
Secondly, considering the thousands of Nigerians in
universities in the U.K, U.S.A, Ghana, Camerouns and
South Africa, etc, one feels that the monies that we spend
subsidising qualitative education elsewhere could go a long
way in improving our own universities. Thus we have the
dilemma that we have nearly sixty struggling universities in
this country and yet our newspapers are replete with
advertisements from foreign universities seeking to attract
our students, or rather our monies?
Education is the most fundamental instrument that defines
and determines the future of any society and must not be left
to the government alone. Besides the risks of the regularity
and sufficiency of funds, such dependency denies the
university the independence of mind and thought that are
sine qua non for the advancement of knowledge.
In a sense, therefore, the present inauspicious times may
have a positive message. It offers a singular opportunity for
the stakeholders – students, parents, university
administrators and faculty, employers, and the government,
and the society at large – to think and act together to
determine the course for the future. The Faculty of
Agriculture has made a start. It deserves our wholehearted
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applause and support to actualise the strategy objectives.
Their challenge is daunting and the targets quite ambitious
but are achievable, with commitment from all.
In conclusion, let me offer a few simple suggestions, which
bring together the two themes I have advocated.
• Firstly, we must continually remind ourselves the
purpose of the university – its obligations to the
community, the nation and the world. We must keep
asking the question: “Education for What?” The
university must stay ahead of change to remain
relevant.
• Secondly, the university must set the highest standards
and priorities and evolve strategies and action plans for
achieving them.
• Thirdly, resource generation should be a full time and
continuous process in line with the strategy and plans.
• Fourthly, to secure its financial future, the university
should seriously build up an investment portfolio in
stocks and shares, properties and other profitable
ventures.
• Fifthly, revenue sources should be progressively
diversified as a conscious safety net.
• Sixthly, key stakeholders should be actively and
continuously cultivated. These include all alumni,
private and public companies, wealthy individuals,
relevant government agencies, local and international
organisations, besides the government.
• Seventhly, the university should canvass tripartite
arrangements between the government, universities
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and the private sector for investment in applied
research and ultimately high technology industries
around the university, including agro-businesses.
• Eighthly, the university is an enterprise and should be
run as such with the application of modern
management techniques and standards. Regular
management training should be a requirement for
administrators and faculty alike.
The Vice-Chancellor, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
these are not prescriptions but merely suggestions for debate
and discussion. Indeed, I would be amazed if anyone has
prescriptions for the complex situations we face. The
suggestions are not original either but I feel they are worth
bearing in mind as we search for the right way forward.
On that note, may I invite you to listen to our keynote
speaker and the distinguished lecturer, both of whom are
eminently qualified to do justice to the subjects of their
lecture.
I thank you all for your attention and patience.
Agbogidi. 25.01.05